


here I am with arms unfolding

by cupcakeb



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25060351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcakeb/pseuds/cupcakeb
Summary: “Sorry,” she says, looking up at him. “I didn’t mean to be a bitch and rub the whole dead sister thing in your face.” He laughs despite himself. It’s nice to be around someone who’s not trying to skirt around the topic, for once.Sometimes he looks at her and sees little hints of Marina. It’s in the way she smiles, rarely but with brute force, in the way she shoots people down defiantly, her words witty and cunning.
Relationships: Rebeca "Rebe" de Bormujo Ávalos/Guzmán Nunier Osuna
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	here I am with arms unfolding

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't stop imagining how fun a Rebeka/Marina friendship would've been... so of course, I went for the next best thing.
> 
> (I realize literally three people will read this, so if you’re one of them, HI! Look at you, trying new things! We love to see it!)

  
It happens like this: Polo dies, they all work together to cover things up, and somehow, despite all the loss and pain Guzmán has felt and caused over the past year, he emerges victorious. The universe grants him a clean slate.  
  
His summer is spent on a few different smaller trips with his parents, because his mother is just starting to come out of her own grief-induced depression, and he takes it easy. He hangs out with Ander a couple of times, glad to see him doing better, and sometimes they all get together for food or a few beers, and act like they aren’t permanently bound together by the deaths of two of the people Guzmán loved most in this world.  
  
He walks back into Las Encinas with his head held high in September, surrounded by a group of friends that looks a little different than it did before, and the weight on his shoulders just… lifts.  
  
(It may also have something to do with the therapist he now begrudgingly sees once a week.)  
  
It’s strange, being at school without Polo, and Lu, and even Carla; he’d always taken their presence for granted, a little. He doesn’t allow himself to miss Nadia, not when he knows she’s having the time of her life in New York — there are countless Instagram posts from both Lu and Nadia herself to highlight this — and really, she deserves to be happy. He loves her, on some level, but it’s not all-consuming. He knows he’s a better person for having met her, though. He can be grateful for that without pining away.  
  
Slowly, he adjusts to the new normal and learns the ins and outs of their new group dynamic. Everyone else in their class is a year younger than them, and he sticks with his crew mainly out of convenience. It would be difficult, at this point, to hang out with anyone who doesn’t know the complex back story they all share — the truth about Marina, and then Polo.  
  
That’s how he ends up befriending Rebeka. Rebeka, who he honestly barely bothered to acknowledge last year, but sort of noticed from afar. She sticks out like a sore thumb in the sort of circles the typical Las Encinas students move in, provides a welcome breath of fresh air.  
  
They work together on a group project at her house which used to be his. She finds him looking around and starts laughing out of nowhere as they’re sitting down, an odd look on her face.  
  
“What?” He asks, but then sort of starts laughing as well, because this really is one of the most bizarre things he’s ever done — walk into the house he grew up in, the house he connects with so many memories (good and bad) only to find somebody else’s furniture strewn around. The owners of the house may have changed, but the views are the same. He finds himself looking past the pool, out at the little valley below and sort of smiles at the wave of nostalgia that hits him.  
  
“Weird, right?” She’s got a little grin on her face, and if he didn’t think girls don’t like hearing it, he’d do something stupid like tell her she should smile more often.  
  
“Yeah,” he nods, then tries to shake off the nostalgia and focus on their biology project. “Weird.”  
  
The Guzmán of old probably would’ve broken the silence that stretches over them by making an inappropriate joke, or throwing her in the pool, or something equally stupid.  
  
But Guzmán stays put. Being less impulsive is nice. He’s learning to enjoy silence.  
  
His therapist would be so proud.  
  
**  
  
After years of attending a school as pretentious and downright ridiculous as Las Encinas, Guzmán isn’t surprised when their history teacher tells them they will be diving into _their_ history in this next unit. He asks them to find an old picture of themselves and recreate it, working in pairs.  
  
Sometimes he genuinely still wonders what the fuck his parents are paying thousands of euros in school fees for.  
  
Rebeka happens to be sitting next to him, clasps a hand over his shoulder and smiles. “Looks like we’re gonna learn all about each other, huh?”  
  
They’re at his place later that day, going through a box of pictures, when she looks up at him from where she’s sprawled across his bed, her feet in the air. “I like this one,” she says, and he moves over to look at the photo she’s clutching.  
  
It’s a picture of him and Marina, and they can’t be older than nine, maybe ten. They’re holding on to the pool ladder at his old house, Marina in a neon green two-piece while he’s wearing simple red board shorts. Both of them are grinning ear to ear, and Marina’s wet curls are kind of clinging to his arm where she’s leaning towards him.  
  
Guzmán takes the picture from Rebeka and sighs.  
  
“Sorry,” she says, looking up at him. “I didn’t mean to be a bitch and rub the whole dead sister thing in your face.”  
  
He laughs despite himself. It’s nice to be around someone who’s not trying to skirt around the topic, for once.  
  
“It’s a nice picture,” he says, and puts it aside. “I guess recreating this would definitely get me pity points and an A.”  
  
He’s joking, really, because virtually anyone with half a brain gets an A on these types of nonsense assignments. You can't grade photo recreation on a curve.  
  
Rebeka smiles. “Well, I didn’t know Marina but I’m sure she’d have been more than happy for you to cash in all the pity points you’ve earned.”  
  
Guzmán looks down at Rebeka, calculating, and nods.  
  
“She would’ve liked you,” he says later, when they’re sitting on his bedroom floor, leaning against the foot of his bed as they drink bottled beer. Their knees are touching, and she sort of nudges his with her own, then takes a drink.  
  
The air between them is rife with emotional tension. Rebeka looks more pensive than he’s ever seen her. “I wish I could have met her,” her voice is genuine and earnest, none of the usual snarky remarks and joking insults she likes to dole out. “She sounds really cool.”  
  
He takes a long drag of beer, then turns to her and nods. “She was.”  
  
Something is different about that, too, about having a friend in his life who somehow just never crossed paths with his sister. Someone who isn’t afraid to ask, or talk about her, because the memory isn’t haunting her.  
  
For the first time, he finds himself thinking he might really like her.  
  
(When he does get an A on the assignment, she says it’s credit to his impeccable abs on display in the picture she took, and he wonders if this is her way of admitting she thinks he’s hot. He certainly hopes it is.)  
  
**  
  
Guzmán ends up developing a little bit of a fascination with watching Rebeka.  
  
Sometimes he looks at her and sees little hints of Marina. It’s in the way she smiles, rarely but with brute force, in the way she shoots people down defiantly, her words witty and cunning. She’s smarter than she lets on, excels at school, and that reminds him of Marina, too.  
  
Thankfully, there are also ways in which she’s absolutely unlike Marina in every possible way. Like when she’s crass, and alludes to a whole life on the wrong side of the tracks which she’s supposedly lived before landing at cushy Las Encinas, or when her choice of attire looks more like what someone might wear to a grunge concert than what the school uniform guidelines dictate; not that anyone’s ever enforced them.  
  
She’s like him, too. Most striking is the loyalty with which she will stand up for her friends and family. He knows it’s why she no longer really speaks to Samuel much, because he’d turned her mother in last spring, and he can’t help but relate to that. If someone did that to his family, he’d probably make sure to never have to see them again. (Most likely, he’d fight the urge to beat them bloody, but he’s trying to work on his anger issues.)  
  
He lets himself watch her dance at a club one night, when a random reggaeton song comes on and can’t help but smile as she becomes one with the music, moving effortlessly, like she couldn’t care less about the countless men in her orbit watching it unfold. It’s fascinating precisely _because_ she is so imprecise; her movements unpolished, like she’s just enjoying herself. He’s genuinely not trying to be creepy, but… Well, okay, he’s pretty sure the fact that he has to justify how he’s not being creepy means he definitely _is_.  
  
Sometimes she’ll look back at him and catch him watching her, like she knows he’s doing it, and it makes his mouth go a little dry; makes him want to do something silly and irresponsible like go up to her and kiss her senseless.  
  
But no. They’re friends, and it’s for the best. He can’t remember the last time he had a female friend.  
  
Guzmán is turning over a new leaf. There’s no room for messy relationships in his life.  
  
**  
  
The problem with noticing he’s got a slight crush on Rebeka is that he now can’t seem to stop being painfully aware of her presence at every turn. He’ll be talking to Ander and Omar out in the courtyard at school, just minding his own business, and suddenly he’ll see her walk by and his brain will just instantly tune out the conversation he was an active participant of before.  
  
He feels like a fucking teenager. (Which, he is, but at almost nineteen, this feels slightly immature.)  
  
Ander, the perceptive idiot, picks up on it one night when the four of them are at Rebeka’s house, drinking out back by the pool. She’s talking to Omar in a corner, animatedly explaining something, and Guzmán finds himself watching her with a little smile on his face.  
  
Ander knocks on his forehead like it’s a door. “Anyone in there?” Guzmán laughs it off and looks over at him. “Dude, you’re staring a little too hard,” he says.  
  
“No I’m not,” Guzmán replies, stubborn. It’s pointless, really, because Ander has known him since he was six. Denying it won’t make it any less true.  
  
“Why aren’t you over there right now, asking her out?”  
  
Guzmán scoffs at him, then realizes Ander and Rebeka are friends. If he’s pushing him to pursue her, does that mean… Oh. Maybe she’s brought him up to Ander.  
  
He drinks the rest of his beer, and tries not to feel like a fifteen-year-old girl when he says, “Wait, did she say anything?”  
  
Ander grins and gets up, giving Guzmán no choice but to follow if he doesn’t wanna sit around alone.  
  
“Rebe,” he yells, walking towards her and Omar. Guzmán is a few steps behind him. “Guzmán needs your photographer skills; help him frame those abs!”  
  
She looks at him and cocks her brow, then grins at both of them.  
  
“Alright, show us what you’ve got, sexy!”  
  
Guzmán smiles and shakes his head in disbelief. Rolling his eyes, he reaches for the top button of his shirt. When Ander and Omar start chanting his name, he laughs and unbuttons it the rest of the way.  
  
Rebeka’s got her phone out, seemingly looking around for the best light.  
  
“That’s right,” she hoots. “Take it off, but slowly,” Ander and Omar yell their agreement. “You know, for the camera and all.”  
  
When his shirt is all the way off, he dramatically throws it at Ander, who hollers at him.  
  
“Come closer for a second,” Rebeka directs, holding her phone up. He obliges, stopping right in front of her. Grinning, she reaches out a hand and runs it along the sculpted muscle mass, sort of pushing into it. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should go to private school.”  
  
He doesn’t get it, not until his phone vibrates in his pocket and he sees Rebe has tagged him in an Instagram story video. He shares it to his own story because his abs do look pretty great, and her narration makes it all the more fun.  
  
Lu and Valerio for some reason both reply to it later that night, almost at the same time, sending him that stupid looking detective emoji, and he ignores them. If he wanted their input, he would’ve asked.  
  
For some reason, he decides to go back to her original post and message Rebeka. ‘ _Thx for the free promo’_ he types, and smiles when the chat label instantly switches to seen. He’s glad she’s quick, or else he would’ve second-guessed his texting game.  
  
_‘They’re pretty good abs’_ is all she says, and he finds himself smiling.  
  
Her reply makes him want to take this further, somehow, even though he knows there’s no good way to do that when it’s after midnight on a school night, and they’re both in different places, sober.  
  
_‘Stop objectifying me !!’_ he types out, hits send and puts his phone away.  
  
Crushes are really fucking annoying.  
  
**  
  
He really does intend to stay away from her. His therapist has been going on and on about how he should focus on himself for a while, on working through his issues rather than giving in to distractions, and Guzmán agrees, for the most part.  
  
Sober Guzmán agrees. Drunk Guzmán might have other plans.  
  
He’s hanging out with Ander, Omar, Samuel and Rebeka, their legs dangling in Rebe’s heated pool as the sun sets on a random Friday in early October. They all get fairly tipsy, mainly because it’s been a while since they’ve all hung out together, and Guzmán manages to keep at least one other person between them all night, just to be sure he keeps his distance.  
  
And sure, he may have had a few rum and cokes. It’s Friday, okay? It’s been a long week and he’s allowed.  
  
One by one, people get up to go home, and Ander gives him a pointed look when they hug goodbye and it’s just him and Rebeka left sitting at the edge of the pool, side by side.  
  
“This is nice,” she says, and he doesn’t really know what she’s alluding to, but finds himself nodding anyway.  
  
He should probably get up to leave. Everyone else is gone, and he doesn’t want to be that awkward lingering guest who can’t take a hint.  
  
“I should go,” he says, and she shakes her head at him.  
  
Sometimes he underestimates her bluntness.  
  
“What part of me telling you I enjoy hanging out with you makes you think I want you to go?”  
  
He reaches a hand into the pool and flicks some water at her lightly, because he can’t think of anything to say. She moves one of her legs and runs her foot up his calf.  
  
So yeah, he knows it’s not the best idea, but he’s a little drunk. He reaches forward and grabs her wrist, tugs her closer. "You should come home with me," he tells her.  
  
She laughs out loud in response, and he’s wondering if this is her rejecting him.  
  
“Guzmán,” she says through bouts of laughter. “We’re literally already at my house.”  
  
Ah. Okay. That makes more sense.  
  
He grins at her, letting out a breath. “You know what I mean.”  
  
She plays with the bottom of his shirt, twirling it around in her hand. “I don’t, actually. Care to enlighten me?” The look she gives him is coy, like she’s challenging him. It instantly sobers him up.  
  
He removes his legs from the water and gets up, holding out his hand for her to take.  
  
It’s the rum talking, definitely, because he doesn’t normally do this kind of thing — he isn’t normally this blatant. “Wanna show me your room?”  
  
She laughs, takes his hand, and comes to stand right in front of him. There’s a joyous smirk playing on her lips. “I’m pretty sure you’ve seen my room, actually,” she says, trying not to laugh, and he groans when he realizes what she’s playing at.  
  
“You just had to go for the south-facing windows, huh?”  
  
“Just think of it as _our_ bedroom; such a romantic notion,” she says, sarcastic, and he chuckles.  
  
He basically has to kiss her. He has to.  
  
Rebeka pulls away first, pushes at his chest and motions for him to walk inside. “Let’s go, _abs_ , time to get up close and personal.”  
  
He’s pretty sure there are worse nicknames to be called. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me [on tumblr](http://cupcakeb.tumblr.com/)


End file.
